Young man dies in tragic Wiky house fire 23-year-old Jason Osawanimiki

had just been accepted to college

by Alicia McCutcheon

WIKWEMIKONG-A house fire occurring in Wikwemikong on April 17 tragically took the life of a young man and soon-to-be college student.

Jason Joseph Osawanimiki was only 23 years old.

The Wikwemikong Tribal Police and Wikwemikong Fire Department were dispatched at approximately 1:29 am to a house on Kaboni Road where they found Mr. Osawanimiki's house totally destroyed by fire.

"He was a quiet guy," 29-year-old Urban Peltier, Mr. Osawanimiki's first cousin, told The Expositor last week.

He explained that his first cousin had grown up in Wikwemikong but had recently been living in Sudbury but had moved home, two houses down, in March.

"We would visit every day," he said.

He explained what happened that fateful night slowly and softly, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders despite the beautiful day outside.

"The phone rang at around 1:30 in the morning and it was my mom-she wanted to know if Jason was with us," Mr. Peltier said. "She said the house was on fire."

"I ran over there and the place was up in flames, everything was engulfed," he said.

That day the two cousins had been together, having some drinks, when Mr. Osawanimiki decided to go home.

The cousin explained that he apparently went to a friend's house instead, where he partied some more until he made up his mind to go home and get something to eat.

"The people he was with offered him something to eat so he would stay but he went home," said Mr. Peltier.

The next thing he knew, his cousin's house was on fire.

Mr. Osawanimiki graduated from Wasse-Abin High School in 2003 and decided to apply to college this year and attend in the fall. His cousin said they he wasn't a big fan of school, but kept at it until he finished.

"He was getting ready to go to college," said Mr. Peltier. "He was accepted to every school he applied to. He was going to go to Sarnia and study horticulture."

Miranda Jacko was Mr. Osawanimiki's girlfriend of four years. She says they had big plans to move to Sarnia together, with her transferring her Cambrian College credits there to be with him.

"After college we were going to move home, start a business, get married and have babies," she said.

"He was a quiet guy," she reiterated. "But whenever he said something, he'd make me laugh."

"He was very positive, he didn't let things get him down," Ms. Jacko said.

Besides an interest in greenery, Mr. Osawanimiki, like many young men, enjoyed music and sports and liked to play basketball.

He played on the high school team for a number of years and has the record for most three-pointers in a row-a record Ms. Jacko hopes remains.

"Ever since he was young, he looked like he was always about to cry," said Michael Peltier, Mr. Osawanimiki's younger cousin. The two cousins say they attribute his quiet nature to the fact his parents separated when he was young-an upheaval, they think, he never really got over.

"When I was younger, I was at his house every weekend. He always gave me his bed," said Mr. Peltier.

"One time this summer, the two of us stayed up for two days straight playing the game Golden Eye," he remembers fondly. "We ended up beating it too."

"We liked being together, all of us, every chance we could get," Mr. Peltier added.

The last time Ms. Jacko saw her boyfriend was three weeks ago when she was home from Sudbury for the weekend and she dropped him off at her grandmother's house.

"I didn't even kiss him goodbye," she sobbed. "I really loved him and I hope he's happy where he's at."

The cause of the fire is still not known and is under investigation by the Ontario Fire Marshal, the coroner's office, and the Wikwemikong Tribal Police.

Regional trail council created to access Trillium Trails funds

by Lindsay Kelly

LITTLE CURRENT-The creation of a LaCloche-Manitoulin Regional Trails Council has been endorsed by a spectrum of local interests hoping to gain access to provincial grants that would see the development of trails in the area.

The council's development is the result of last week's spring economic partners' meeting-put on by the LaCloche-Manitoulin Business Assistance Corporation (LAMBAC), Waubetek, and the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines-at which stakeholders from across the LaCloche-Manitoulin area met to discuss the potential for the development of trails which would serve a variety of interest groups, including four-wheeling enthusiasts, snowmobilers, walkers, skiers and more.

John Foster, economic development officer for LAMBAC, noted that, according to a proposed funding grant plan put forth by the Ontario government's Trillium Trails Funding initiative, more funding may be available for trail development over the next few years, but the province will give priority to communities in which a trails council has been established.

"The province wants to talk to regional bodies that bring together all the stakeholders of the area," he said. "And because both LAMBAC and Waubetek have regional responsibilities for Manitoulin and LaCloche, it makes sense to create one regional body."

Once formally launched, the council's first priority will likely be to secure access to the railbed that runs between Espanola and Little Current, to try to facilitate the intersection of trails from LaCloche with trails on Manitoulin, Mr. Foster indicated.

Parties with a vested interest in this project will be invited to participate in a meeting in June, at which time the council will be formally set up with representatives from a variety of groups, he added. But already the establishment of the council marks an important first step in trail development on the Island.

Last week's meeting saw the coming together of a variety of parties that are not normally in agreement about trail development. For example, represented groups included snowmobilers, hiking enthusiasts, municipalities, First Nations, landowners, tourism associations and business owners.

But they were able to sit through a day of presentations and workshops together, and it's this positive approach that Mr. Foster commended.

"What was really positive was that we had people from both the Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy and the Manitoulin Landowners' Association and everyone was able to agree on the resolution to form the trail council," he said. "It shows you can have competing interests, but as long as you come to the table in a collegial, civil way, co-operative solutions can be found."

This approach was implemented by the City of Elliot Lake in 2002 when it looked at ways to boost year-round tourism in the region. Trails had been identified as an excellent way to do that, but first the city had to get all the interest groups in the same room talking to each other.

"It wasn't easy at the beginning, but it got a lot easier because they (the user groups) recognized the benefit to them," said Carmaine McCallum, tourism manager for the City of Elliot Lake.

The city gathered outdoor recreationists like cross-country skiers, four-wheeler enthusiasts, snowmobilers and naturalists with loggers, Ministry of Natural Resources representatives, fur harvesters, miners, and the cottage development team-basically anyone on which trail development would have an impact, Ms. McCallum said.

Through discussions at an annual planning session, each group knew what the other was planning and they were able to present to city council a united front, making their case for trails a strong one, she added.

The Elliot Lake Shared Trail System was born, and today the city boasts more than 1,000 kilometres of trails within its boundaries, with trail uses ranging from four-wheeling to canoeing to mountain biking to snowmobiling.

From the start, however, the city made an important distinction that theirs was a 'shared use' trail system, rather than the more commonly used 'multi-use' trail system.

"'Multi-use' implies that you can do anything on the trails," Ms. McCallum indicated, but the group wanted to ensure that use on the trails was limited to what the trail could support. For example, some of the mining trails would erode under use by motorized vehicles, but are fine for walking. At the annual planning sessions, each group has input into the decision until an agreement is reached.

"I'm not saying that everyone agrees with everything, but everyone comes to an understanding," Ms. McCallum said.

She suggested that LaCloche-Manitoulin was an ideal area to follow Elliot Lake's lead because "the place lends itself to trails, without a doubt," she said. "I look at what we've developed in Elliot Lake and here it's absolutely phenomenal."

LAMBAC general manager Mary Nelder pointed out that LAMBAC's role with the council would be to generate tourism-related economic development opportunities in the area, and that a focus on trails was "kind of a natural, given the geographic surroundings we find ourselves in."

In addition to the economic development benefits, trails also provide health benefits to residents and visitors alike, she noted, although much work will need to be done before the trail council can begin its work in earnest.

"We recognize that there are obstacles and barriers to trail development, and those are some things that need to be worked through to bring the trails to fruition," she said.

Mr. Foster stressed that LAMBAC is there to assist with trail development only in the communities that want trails, and will only be involved in trails that are economically viable.

There has to be "adequate community consultation," he added. "If there is a big public uproar about something then that's a good indication that there hasn't been enough consultation."

He noted that the organization's focus right now is on developing trails in the LaCloche area-which includes the Black Creek Trail, the Heaven's Gate Trail and the Bass Pond Trail-but it could shift to include Manitoulin in the future.

Shredded Zhiibaahaasing tires being used for landfill cover

irks others who bid to recycle

by Jim Moodie

ZHIIBAAHAASING-One man's junk, as the saying goes, is another's treasure. And so it certainly seems to be for Zhiibaahaasing's scrap tires, which are now being eagerly welcomed by a landfill operator in Chatham, much to the envy and frustration of other enterprises that covet the material.

"We have a big project and need maybe 100,000 tires," said Steve Hauk of New Roads, a Thorold-based manufacturer that converts truck tires into blasting mats. "We were told that about a third of those 1.5 million tires were truck tires, so we were rubbing our hands-then we heard this business about the tires going into a landfill."

The tires being currently shredded at the Zhiibaahaasing stockpile site are indeed bound for a dump, confirmed Brock Worobel, spokesperson for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), which awarded the tire removal contract to Empire Recycling earlier this year. "They're going to the Ridge landfill, which is one of the few landfills in the province to have certification issued through the Ministry of the Environment to take shredded tires and use them for pre-approved purposes like landfill liner," he said.

Previous communication from INAC concerning the destination of the tires had been more vague, with the department referring to a "recycling depot" operated by BFI Canada in the Chatham area.

That was a tad disingenuous, in Mr. Hauk's view, as the BFI operation "doesn't recycle: it's a landfill." He said that using the term 'recycling' is "a bit of smoke and mirrors," as the tire shred isn't used for another product, but simply spread over garbage as cover material.

The blast mat manufacturer admitted he has "an ulterior motive" in discussing the issue, but said "I'm also environmentally conscious and got into this business because recycling tires is beneficial. Shredding tires for landfill cover is an acceptable use, but why not use them for something like blast mats first?" he asked.

For BFI, whose Chatham dump is the biggest in the province (the company additionally operates large landfills in Quebec, Manitoba and Alberta, plus over 20 in the US), the shredded rubber provides a welcome substitute for soil or aggregate as cover material. "What we have at landfills is a requirement to always put on cover at the end of the day, and this is 'alternative daily cover,'" said Chaya Cooperberg, the company's director of corporate communications.

A layer of covering material "dampens smells and keeps papers from flying away," she noted, and tire shred provides "a great alternative daily cover material." Of the shred being rendered from Zhiibaahaasing's tires, Ms. Cooperberg said, "we'll be using as many tons of that as we can get."

And why not? Not only is the material approved for this purpose by the province, and will spare BFI the expense of acquiring sand or soil for the same function, but the company actually gets paid to accept the tire shred. While Ms. Cooperberg declined to say how much the firm will receive for taking the material, she conceded that there is a tipping fee involved, while pointing out that this is far from unusual: whether a used tire goes to a processor or a landfill like the one operated by BFI, the contractor delivering the scrap rubber is obliged to pay for its disposal.

She maintains that, despite the negative connotation associated with tires being put in landfills, "they're being used for a good purpose" in this case. "It's redirecting material that would otherwise be waste to positive avenues."

Glenn Maidment of Ontario Tire Stewardship, an industry board comprised of tire producers and sellers, tends to agree. He said that daily cover is just one of several ways that shredded tires-or 'tire-derived aggregate' as it is often called now-can be effectively employed in a landfill environment.

"When you have a new landfill, it can be used instead of gravel in a leachate collection system, where it acts as an excellent filter," he noted. "And daily cover, where you might otherwise need two to three feet of sand or gravel before adding another layer (of garbage), is another example."

Mr. Maidment conceded that the spreading of scrap rubber over a dump is viewed, in some quarters at least, as "a linear landfill," and fierce advocates of the three Rs (or four Rs, with the final 'R' standing for recovery) might point to better options that would extend the life of the material further. "But it is recycling in my view, and a reasonable use," he said.

This is particularly true, he said, for tires that have languished in a stockpile for a number of years, as "these tend to get dirty and full of rocks, and people who produce crumb rubber for higher-end use, like molded goods, don't tend to like tires out of stockpiles. If there's gravel in there, it breaks the knives on their machines, and tires that have sat there for a long time also lose their elasticity."

Peter Hutley of Ontario Tire Recovery (OTR), the province's largest trucker of spent tires, takes exception to this argument, however. His firm was one of several companies to bid on the tire removal job at Zhiibaahaasing, and he and other members of the company visited the site in person to assess the material's quality.

"Stockpiles are notoriously dirty," he admitted, "but I've been in this business for 10 years, and my boss has been involved for 30 years, and we've never seen such a clean site. You wouldn't believe how clean those tires are."

In his view, the tires could easily have been put to other purposes, such as stripped for the blast mat trade or crumbed for use as artificial turf, animal fatigue mats, or running tracks. His company was proposing to deliver the tires to processors who create such products, he said, while conceding that some of the tires would also have gone for use as tire-derived fuel (in other words, burned in cement kilns).

"We deal with 15 different processors from Michigan to Quebec, with most in Ontario, and our first choice is always blasting mats, which use the whole tire, then crumb rubber, then tire-derived fuel," he said.

Because of the brief 1.5-month time frame that INAC initially scheduled for the tire removal job, Mr. Hutley said his firm was forced, in its bid, to consider cement kilns as one of the main destinations for the tires, but "if we had six months, as we were told just before the closing of proposals, we could have used two or three processors and the tires all could have been recycled."

In his view, spreading the shredded rubber on a landfill site is both a waste of the resource and a direct contradiction of the terms set out by INAC for the tires' removal. In its request for proposals, INAC stated that the intended purpose of the job was to transport the tires "directly to an appropriate processing facility where they can be put to an alternative beneficial use other than dumping, landfilling, or long-term storage," said Mr. Hutley, putting the emphasis on 'landfilling.'

"They were very explicit that they didn't want them landfilled," he said. "People were happy to pay a buck-and-a-half per tire to Cockburn Recycling because they thought they would be recycled, and not go in a landfill, and now they're going to a landfill."

And while he admits that strewing shredded rubber over a dump as cover material is different than burying whole tires, he questions how effective the tire shred currently being created at the Zhiibaahaasing site will be for such purposes.

Mr. Hutley contends that the type of machine being used by Empire Recycling "just chops the tire up into two or three pieces, " whereas the standard for tire-derived aggregate calls for pieces that measure much smaller. "This material they're making up there doesn't meet the standard," he alleges, adding that if the rubber isn't reduced to the required size, "it's too porous" when laid over garbage in a landfill. "It won't reduce smell and will provide a perfect habitat for animals."

As one of the rejected bidders on the tire removal job, priced at roughly $4 million, it is perhaps expected that Ontario Tire Recovery might be quick to point out the flaws of the successful firm's remediation plan, but Mr. Hutley maintains that independent, expert observers also question the use of tires in landfill applications.

He points to the writings of Dana Humphrey, a professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Maine, who is colloquially referred to in the tire trade as 'Dr. Shred.' "He promotes tire-derived aggregate, but says alternative daily cover in landfills is the lowest of the low," said Mr. Hutley.

It isn't the case, however, that Dr. Humphrey entirely rules out the use of chipped rubber in dumps. In a paper he presented to a tire industry conference in 1999, he notes that "the high permeability of tire shreds make them suitable for several landfill applications," including leachate collection at the base of a dump, and a "foundation layer beneath the landfill cap." It's true, though, that 'alternative daily cover' makes the bottom of the list of the landfill applications he cites. And he adds that this use "generally requires mixing shreds with soil."

Whether one views the spreading of shredded rubber over refuse as 'recycling' or 'linear landfilling' is a semantic question that could receive many answers, depending on who you are and what stake you might have in the issue.

For BFI Canada, it's a convenient and cost-effective way to conduct their operation. For firms that hoped to put the tires to other purposes, while also making money through the transfer process, it's a shame, if not a travesty.

For INAC, the proposal made by Empire Recycling-which included delivery of the tires to the Chatham landfill-was deemed the most favourable, and not simply because of cost.

"There were a number of requirements that needed to be met," said Mr. Worobel of INAC. "And cost was not necessarily the most important thing. We set out a scale of predetermined goals that needed to be met, and those included experience, the ability to get them off the site as fast as possible, and a solid proposal backed by letters from companies that the tires were going to go to. Empire met the threshold that was pre-set by the review committee."

At present, the Florida-based firm, represented in Canada by Mike Vagi, is "still in phase one" of the tire removal operation, shredding material on site, said Mr. Worobel. "We have to wait for the half-load restrictions to be lifted before the tires are trucked away, which will be another two weeks."

While work proceeds at the Zhiibaahaasing tire dump, the media and other members of the public will remain barred from the site, said Mr. Worobel, but not because of any desire to be secretive. "It's because of health and safety and liability issues," he stressed. "It's a normal procedure for the government to not allow people into a remediation site."

Once the ground firms up and the size of the tire pile decreases, reducing potential hazards, Mr. Worobel said it may be possible to escort a reporter through the work site.

Meanwhile, however, the closed nature of the operation only tends to fuel the suspicion that proper standards are somehow being disregarded; that corners, in some regard, are being cut. Concerns have been voiced, for instance, that the shredding work is not adhering to the stipulations set out by the provincial fire code concerning acceptable sizes of piles and their distances from buildings.

But Mr. Worobel maintains that "we're not hiding anything." And as for suggestions that the tires' next incarnation as landfill cover is less than ideal, he said the department sticks by its decision. "This was the best proposal, and it's wrong to think that we're moving a problem out of one community and giving it to another," he said.

Norisle gets shipshape for summer visits

by Jim Moodie

MANITOWANING-"Well arranged, orderly and neat."

That's the definition of shipshape, and while it might not be an adjective you would apply to the debris-strewn S.S. Norisle at the moment, it's the goal of the stewardship group entrusted with its care to feng shui (contemporary definition: "declutter") the old passenger steamship in the coming weeks.

The weekend before last, southern Ontario steam experts John Coulter and Wayne Fischer paid another visit to Manitowaning to take a closer look at the old boat, and one of the tasks they initiated, with the help of several Friends of the Norisle committee members, was to identify all the material on board and determine what should be removed in preparation for an inspection by Transport Canada.

"We've got it all labelled now," said Friends chair Dave Ham of the miscellaneous stuff on the vessel, some of it spare parts that could eventually find a use, a lot of it just plain junk. "There's got to be two or three tandem truckloads that has to go-there's a mountain of stuff down there."

Rob Maguire, a Friends of the Norisle committee member as well as Assiginack Township's economic development officer, elaborated that the boat "needs to be completely empty before it can be inspected, so we went through the ship and tagged everything that belonged to the ship, and everything else will be removed."

The group present for the one-day work bee overseen by Mr. Coulter and Mr. Fischer removed some of the material by hand, but much remains to be hauled out, said Mr. Maguire. Some of the material dates to the popular Haunted Ship event held a few years ago, and will be returned to the committee members who staged that experience.

Apart from cataloguing which items should remain on board and which should be carted away, the group also did some work on the boat's electrical system, problems with which had been partly responsible for the ship not being made available for tours last summer. "We got all the electrics restored on the vessel," said Mr. Ham, adding that "we also took a complete library of photographs."

As well, the volunteers took measurements of various parts of the ship to see how the dimensions squared up with the original technical drawings of the vessel, which Mr. Coulter had acquired through Transport Canada.

The group's long-term goal remains to reactivate the vessel as a cruise ship, but in the meantime the expectation is that it will be made available again this summer as a stationary tourist attraction. "We're planning to have it open for tourists this season," said Mr. Maguire, adding that, "if there's an area we're working on, we'll just close that section off."

It's anticipated that one summer student can be funded through the township to work as a tourist advisor on the boat, said Mr. Maguire, who himself found seasonal employment on the Norisle as a youth. "Part of my interest in the boat comes from working on it in the summers as a teenager," he said, noting that he had a job helping out on the vessel during its very first year in port in 1975.

"At that time they didn't have much money to pay us, so I think we got 50 cents an hour," he said with a laugh. "But I have very fond memories of the ship."

Now it falls to Mr. Maguire to seek funding avenues for a feasibility study of the ship's future possibilities. The township has authorized him to approach agencies that might bankroll such an exercise, but the first task, he said, is to draft terms of reference and set a budget. "Then, subject to approval, we would do a request for proposals to companies capable of carrying out the market feasibility study for options for the ship," he said.

Interest in the Norisle preservation effort continues to grow, with over 100 members having joined the cause at a cost of $20 each, and some contributing much more than that in donations. In order to acknowledge such support, the Friends of the Norisle are planning to distribute membership cards, buttons, and eventually a quarterly newsletter to members, said Mr. Maguire.

At a meeting of the Friends of the Norisle executive committee last week, the group worked on a draft constitution which will be important in achieving not-for-profit charitable status. The designation would allow the group to issue tax receipts to donors, although in the meantime the Township of Assiginack is allowing this to occur anyway by acting as temporary banker.

Plans have also been made to deal with a couple of pressing maintenance chores on the boat. One is to pump water out of the lower bow ballast area. "The hull has taken on some water, although no more than was there two years ago," said Mr. Maguire. "We've just been waiting for it to thaw out." Given the recent mild spell, it was anticipated that the pumping could occur this week.

As well, the stewardship committee plans to install an aluminum cap on the ship's smokestack to prevent precipitation from getting in and soaking the areas below decks. A tarp was positioned over the stack earlier this spring but it keeps getting dislodged by wind.

"We need a more permanent solution to the tarp, so Henley Boats is going to provide the aluminum and some volunteers are getting together to put together a proper lid for it," said Mr. Maguire, adding that a crane operator has volunteered his services to install the cap.

"It will be the first new addition to the ship," said Mr. Maguire.

Co-operative trail council for region a welcome development

Following the recent controversy over the hiking trail proposal in the Northeast Town, it comes as good news that Manitoulin organizations, municipalities and First Nations have come together as stakeholders to explore options for multi-use trail development through a regional trails council that could access provincial funding.

The meeting at which this determination was made was held last week. Ironically, this meeting date and the agenda had been established some months before, indeed well before the trail in the Northeast Town came to political prominence.

As a first step, the initiative taken last week is a good one. For one thing, the idea of hiking trails is supported by Ontario's Ministry of Health Promotion in the interest of encouraging exercise and the accompanying health benefits. (It was in this same vein that Sudbury and District Health Unit Public Health Nurse Linda Belton attended the public meeting concerning the proposed trail in the Northeast Town and supported the project.)

But regional trail council model endorsed last week would explore options not just for hikers, but also ATV enthusiasts, cyclists, snowmobilers and paddlers portaging canoes.

At the present time on Manitoulin, trails are supported and maintained by a varied assortment of groups and organizations: in the municipal line, Billings has a trail along the Kagawong River, Northeast Manitoulin supports the Lewis Twin Peaks Trail in Sheguiandah, Central Manitoulin has responsibility for Wagg's Woods Trail in Mindemoya, Assiginack has trails (including one for mountain bikers) in McLean's Park, and these are just a few.

The Manitoulin Tourism Association, working with private landowners, maintains the Cup and Saucer Trails, and M'Chigeeng and Sheshegwaning First Nations each have popular and well-developed trails.

The Manitoulin Snowdusters maintains a snowmobile trail system, the Manitoulin Nordic Ski Club has dedicated skiing trails in each of Honora Bay and on the Gibraltar Road, and there are more. Many more.

The fact is, all of these existing trails are well established but are usually only promoted by their own municipality or First Nation or by the organization that maintains the particular trail.

Last week's meeting of interested partners was an excellent step towards expanding the trail network in a co-operative way and promoting Manitoulin and LaCloche as an area where one can have a hiking (or mountain biking, or fourwheeling) holiday.

Granted, the bits and pieces of the trail "system" aren't linked, but an inventory of existing resources is very important and congratulations are due to the economic partners who convened this meeting and took this important first step towards becoming an official part of Ontario's trail strategy.

Letters to the Editor

Expositor lauded for balanced treatment of hiking trail controversy

A fine example of objective coverage, thoughtful commentary

To the Expositor:

As a 30-year subscriber to the Manitoulin Expositor, we have developed an unshakeable confidence in its complete and balanced treatment of both local and regional issues. The current coverage of the hiking trail controversy is yet a another fine  example of  objective coverage, supported by thoughtful editorial commentary. When national laurels are passed out for exemplary community newspapers, it is little wonder that  the Expositor has few rivals. 

Carolyn and John Horton

Toronto 

Farmers have been stewards of their properties for over a century

We are not hillbillies who misuse the land!

To the Expositor:

I am writing in support of Judy Wood, who wrote a response to the April 11, 2007 editorial and article in the Manitoulin Expositor concerning the proposed Northeast Manitoulin trail. Many of the points raised in her letter rang true with my own experience.  I was raised a farmer's daughter. I am now a farmer's wife. I am a Haweater; born, bred and proud of it! I am open-minded, university-educated (in the "big city," no less!), and I'd like to think I have reasonable, informed opinions on many subjects. I did not attend the meeting regarding the proposed hiking trail in NEMI. I did, however, take umbrage to the tone of the article reporting about it, and the words used within the editorial. I have spoken to a number of people who attended the meeting, and feel that perhaps the wording of both the editorial and the article were intended to be somewhat inflammatory.

Like Judy Wood, I believe that farmers are stewards of the land. It is from the land that they make their living, and for anyone who knows the farming business, they know that in modern times that living is very hard to make. Very few farm families anymore don't have at least one person working off the farm to make ends meet. If, as a group, farmers seem reluctant to see hiking trails opened across Manitoulin, it is probably that they have had similar experiences to what I have had: gates are opened and aren't returned to the condition they were when the "travellers" found them, cattle are spooked by people who don't know how to behave among them (particularly cows with calves at their sides, who are territorial to start with), garbage is left behind (a plastic shopping bag can choke cattle!), and it goes on and on. I know that many hikers believe in leaving nothing but footprints behind, but once trails are opened, they are open to all--the environmentally friendly, and the folks who visit and leave their garbage behind alike.

A hiking trail is recreational. A farm is the livelihood of the family living and working on it. There is a huge difference. The problem is that if you aren't making your living off the land, you perhaps have less sympathy for the opinions held by those people who do!

I attended the meetings held three years ago regarding issues involving "biosphere reserves." These meetings showed me that the people of Manitoulin were divided on this issue, but many were willing to stand up and be heard. If the meeting regarding the trail seemed to have more people willing to speak against it than for it, perhaps as a public meeting it accurately reflects public opinion. We do live in a democracy, and if people are invited to attend and then choose not to, or choose not to speak, they will have to live with the decisions of the majority. If that majority speaks against the development of a hiking trail, perhaps the NEMI council made the correct decision based on the public feedback from a public meeting. If more people wanted the hiking trail, they should have attended the meeting and showed their support. I have always believed that if we are unwilling to speak up when we have an opinion, no one will know what our opinion really is!

While it's true that tourism plays a huge role in our economy, we can't afford to forget the role that landowners and farmers play in the Island economy. We, too, buy groceries, clothing, vehicles, etc., and eat out all year round. In 2003, when the BSE crisis affected Island farmers, it also affected other businesses, because farm families had considerably less money to spend. We are not a bunch of "hillbillies" who misuse the land. The farmers of Manitoulin have been cautious stewards of the land, the water, and other natural resources for well over 100 years. They look to the land for their living, and no-one would deliberately destroy their own way of making that living.

The people who have since come to Manitoulin, drawn by its beauty and its atmosphere, need to remember that the people who have looked after this land--the First Nations, the first settlers who came to timber and clear the land, and the farmers and other business people who make their living off it--are the people who created the "atmosphere" and protected its beauty for more than a century.

I can only hope that the same people who are proponents of all the positives that a hiking trail could bring, can also acknowledge that, in some cases, some negatives can happen, too. Without the people who have safeguarded our Island for so long, it wouldn't be the place it is today. I would not want a hiking trail crossing my property, and if it was proposed in our municipality, I would stand up and speak my piece. My hat goes off to all the people who attended the NEMI meeting, and to those who wrote letters to the editor, regardless of their opinion. 

The reporting of public meetings and the publication of letters to the editor should show a true reflection of public opinion--not just "equal representation," particularly if the opinions expressed show an overwhelming opinion in one direction or the other.

In closing, we should all remember that while tourism plays a huge role in our economy, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture bumper sticker that reads "If you ate today, thank a farmer" also bears some thought.

Heather Jefkins

Gore Bay

Critic of doctor rostering feels punished for decision

I will not give freedom of choice away

To the Expositor:

An open letter to MPP Mike Brown:

I'm a resident of Manitoulin for many years. Today I had to go to the Manitoulin Health Centre in Little Current to see the nurse practitioner for a minor matter that did not need a doctor. The receptionist told me that I can no longer see the NP, because I have not signed a "Rostering Contract." As a strong opponent of "rostering," I will not be pressured by anyone to give my freedom of choice away. I feel held hostage by whomever is responsible for this "rostering," be it politicians, doctors or anyone else. I had to make an appointment with my family doctor, and it can take up to two months or more to see her. As you can imagine, I'm very upset and I would like to hear from you on this matter, as I know I'm not the only person to oppose "rostering," but feel I'm being punished by a longer waiting time to address my health problems.

I'm looking forward to your response.

Alice Rochat

Little Current